During his February 11 radio program, Rush Limbaugh advanced the right-wing myth that the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) "was used by ACORN and their allies to wreck the housing market by wrecking the mortgage market" and thus caused the financial crisis. Limbaugh later added: "Obama still supports the very thing that caused the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the first place. ACORN still supports it. [Rep.] Barney Frank and [Sen.] Chris Dodd, both of whom should be sharing a cell with Bernie Madoff, still support it"

A November 13 Wall Street Journal op-ed claimed that loans made "under the pressure of" the Community Reinvestment Act helped to "fuel the greatest housing bubble our nation has ever seen." The claim that affordable housing initiatives were responsible for the housing crisis is a widely discredited myth.

Describing an agreement that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Department of Justice helped broker that would require Westchester County, New York, to spend more than $50 million of its own funds to develop affordable housing, Fox News' Andrew Napolitano commented, "Big brother is here," and he also said that "the government is taking money from you by suppressing the value of your real estate." But Napolitano never mentioned that for years, Westchester County sought and received millions in federal housing aid and that the agreement, if ratified, would settle a lawsuit claiming Westchester misrepresented its fair housing efforts to federal officials.

Dick Morris falsely claimed that "in the 2000s, when Bush proposed measures to rein in Fannie Mae, Barney Frank killed them." In fact, for much of the 2000s, Frank had no power to "kill[] ... measures" -- Republicans controlled the House, and Frank sponsored a bill to enhance oversight of Fannie and Freddie soon after Democrats took over the House in 2007.

Tucker Carlson claimed that the mortgage crisis "emanated from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," and asserted that one of the "reasons this crisis began ... was federal pressure to increase homeownership, and Barney Frank was in an oversight position during that process and didn't do a lot to stop it." In fact, Frank did not become chairman of the House Financial Services Committee until 2007, and it was not until Democrats gained a majority in Congress that legislation strengthening oversight of Fannie and Freddie passed.

On CNN's State of the Union, host John King did not challenge former Vice President Dick Cheney's false claim that the Bush administration tried "to impose reforms on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and we ran into a stone wall on Capitol Hill in the form of the chairmen and -- of the Banking Committee in the House and the Senate, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd." In fact, Frank and Dodd were not "chairmen" until 2007, after which time Congress passed oversight legislation of Fannie and Freddie.

The New York Times was forced to issue two corrections after relying on Capitol Hill anonymous sourcing for its flawed report on emails from former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The Clinton debacle is the latest example of why the media should be careful when relying on leaks from partisan congressional sources -- this is far from the first time journalists who did have been burned.

Several Fox News figures are attempting to shift partial blame onto Samuel DuBose for his own death at the hands of a Cincinnati police officer during a traffic stop, arguing DuBose should have cooperated with the officer's instructions if he wanted to avoid "danger."

Iowa radio host Steve Deace is frequently interviewed as a political analyst by mainstream media outlets like NPR, MSNBC, and The Hill when they need an insider's perspective on the GOP primary and Iowa political landscape. However, these outlets may not all be aware that Deace gained his insider status in conservative circles by broadcasting full-throated endorsements of extreme right-wing positions on his radio show and writing online columns filled with intolerant views that he never reveals during main stream media appearances.